ILIBRARYOF ONGRESS.iI 

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RESPONSIBILITIES 



AMERICAN MERCHANTS 



FOR THE 



CONVERSION OF THE WORLD TO CHRIST. 



BY JOHN A. JAMESON, Esq., 

FREEPORT, ILL. 




NEW YORK : 

I. W. BRINCKERHOFF, 150 NASSAU-STREET. 

1855. 



. rt 



This treatise, written at the instance 
of a merchant who has deeply felt the 
momentous import of the subject, receiv- 
ed an award of $100, from Messrs. R. 
T. Haines, G-eorge D. Phelps, and Prof. 
Howard Crosby, of New York city. 



TO 



THE MERCHANTS 



OF 



THE UNITED STATES. 



It is proposed, in the following pages, 
to set forth the duties which merchants 
owe to the cause of missions ; to illus- 
trate briefly the claims of the unevan- 
gelized world upon them ; and to enforce 
the consequient obligation to meet and 
satisfy those claims. 

The question, whether the hopes of 
the Christian church in regard to the 
ultimate evangelization of the world are 
ever to be fully realized, we do not pro- 



4 TO THE MERCHANTS 

pose to discuss. "We shall assume that 
the prophecies and promises of G-od in 
his holy word make certain this result, 
and content ourselves with alluding to 
the four following indications that it is 
approaching. 

1. Christianity is now only commenc- 
ing her career of foreign conquest. So 
far as regards the world at large, she is 
in her youth, and for the first time since 
the age of the apostles is beginning to 
address herself exclusively to her great 
work of renovating the world. 

2. The condition of the world itself, 
as a field for Christian effort, is now 
inviting beyond what it has ever been 
since the death of our Saviour. The 
heart and mind of the heathen nations 
seem to be stirring within them with 
great hopes, having reference plainly to 
the establishment among them of a new 



OF THE UNITED STATES. 5 

order of things, wherein shall reign 
righteousness. With great truth may 
it be said, that " Ethiopia is stretching 
out her hands to God," and that the isl- 
ands of the sea are either impatiently 
waiting, or, like Macedonia of old, ear- 
nestly calling for the gospel. 

3. The relations of Christianity to the 
social and political world give promise 
of success in the great struggle between 
light and darkness. The nations of Eu- 
rope and America most conspicuous for 
devotion to the Christian faith, are at 
the same time the dominant nations in 
political enlightenment and power. 

4. The commerce of the world is in 
the hands of Christian nations. 

Without farther preliminary sugges- 
tions, we proceed directly to consider 
the peculiar fitness of merchants, and 
particularly American and Christian 



6 TO THE MERCHANTS 

merchants, for the service of gospel pio- 
neers in foreign lands, as well as for 
giving impulse and direction to mission- 
ary effort at home ; and their consequent 
obligation to enter heartily into this 
great work. 

I. In the first place, then, merchants, 
as such, are especially fitted for the 
work of evangelization by their extend- 
ed and intimate commercial relations 
with the various heathen nations. 

Did our space permit, or were it 
deemed necessary, it would be easy to 
give statistics of the immense commerce 
carried on by the merchant vessels of 
Europe and America with the various 
quarters of the world. Our object is a 
more limited and personal one. Suffice 
it to say, that from the ports of Eng- 
land, France, and the United States, 
are clearing daily many hundreds of 



OF THE UNITED STATES. 7 

merchant vessels for trading-posts in 
various parts of the heathen world. 
There are also the national vessels of 
war, of which the officers and crews are 
very numerous, and in relation to which, 
in general, the same reasoning would 
apply. Those thus visiting foreign 
ports, as they arrive at their respective 
destinations, become the representatives 
of the Christian faith to the eye and the 
heart of heathenism. As such they are 
regarded by the votaries of idol-worship 
with whom they come in contact. The 
intelligent pagan, accustomed to the 
daily spectacle, among his own coun- 
trymen, of men living strictly up to the 
requirements of their religious system, 
at the risk of life and estate, judges in 
like manner of an unknown religion, by 
the fruit it bears in the lives of its pro- 
fessors. Of what immense importance 



8 TO THE MERCHANTS 

is it, then, that the officers and crews 
of such vessels should be men having 
the true spirit of Christianity ; that, in 
their daily intercourse with idolaters, 
they should exhibit an honorable and 
virtuous regard for their feelings, their 
rights, and their spiritual welfare ; that 
they should be men zealous to labor and 
to pray for the spread of the gospel ; or, 
that, at least, they should be upright 
and moral men, unstained by the vices 
too prevalent among mariners of all na- 
tions, so as to throw no obstacles in the 
way of gospel missionaries. 

How much evil the lack of common 
honesty and virtue* among mariners has 
wrought to the cause of missions, may 
be seen in the Sandwich Islands, where 
it has been found less difficult to extir- 
pate the idols out of the homes and 
hearts of the natives, and to educate 



OF THE UNITED STATES. 9 

and christianize them, than to coun- 
teract the baleful influence of nomi- 
nal Christians. These latter, flocking 
thither from all lands, for no higher pur- 
pose than the acquisition of gain, sow, 
even among the converts to Christian- 
ity, the seeds of intemperance and its 
kindred vices. How can this be other- 
wise, when men of the same blood and 
language as their religious teachers, and, 
to the eye of the heathen, bearing equal- 
ly the stamp and seal of Christianity, 
show by their daily conduct that to be 
a Christian and at the same time a 
cheat or a debauchee, are by no means 
incompatible? A few ungodly sailors 
from Christian ports, by their vicious 
example, may in a great degree neu- 
tralize the efforts of a missionary sta- 
tion. This is because men will always 
test the truth and value of a new relig- 



10 TO THE MERCHANTS 

ious system by the effects it produces 
on the life and character of its represen- 
tatives. 

The heathen world, then, has a right 
to demand of the merchants of Christian 
lands, that these their representatives 
shall be men whose example will not 
be destructive of respect for the religion 
with which they are nominally connect- 
ed. Our merchant vessels constitute so 
many shuttles, plying incessantly be- 
tween the dominions of Christian light 
and heathen darkness, and, by their 
subtle threads, weaving together the 
material interests of regions most remote 
and dissimilar : should they not also, 
Christian merchants, serve as conduct- 
ors of the heavenly light abounding 
among you, but there, alas, rarely or 
never seen, or seen only half obscured 
by the influence of evil example ? 



OF THE UNITED STATES. 11 

We are aware that a practical diffi- 
culty may be here suggested — the diffi- 
culty of procuring for the merchant ser- 
vice sailors and officers of the character 
required. In reply to this objection we 
have two suggestions to make, which 
we believe will show it to be ground- 
less. 

1. The general principle of political 
economy, that "a demand will beget 
a supply," is no less true of men than 
of products of a particular description 
and quality. Has the Christian mer- 
chant made the effort to procure crews 
for his vessels who would exert a good 
moral and religious influence? We 
fear there are few who can answer this 
question in the affirmative. How then 
can the objection be honestly urged, 
until not only that effort has been per- 
severingly made, but until increased 



12 TO THE MERCHANTS 

remuneration has been offered, and the 
offer been declined by men of such a 
stamp ? 

2. Our second suggestion is founded 
on the too general persuasion that sail- 
ors are and must be abandoned men; 
that if not such at first, their occupation 
gradually drags them down to that con- 
dition. Prom this opinion we entirely 
dissent. It is unfounded in principle, 
and untrue in fact. It would be nearer 
the truth to affirm, that the tendency of 
employment upon the high seas is to 
render the hearts and minds of sailors 
more than usually open to religious im- 
pressions. There is, therefore, no neces- 
sity, arising either from the paucity of 
Christian seamen, or from the nature 
and tendency of the mariner's vocation, 
for longer freighting our vessels with 
vice instead of virtue, with practical 



OF THE UNITED STATES. 13 

heathenism instead of vital Christian- 
ity. 

II. Merchants are peculiarly fitted for 
aiding in the spread of the gospel, and 
the claims upon them are proportiona- 
lly weighty, because as a class they are 
preeminent for enterprise and practical 
business talents; and because they con- 
trol the bulk of the floating capital of 
the world. 

"We have hitherto spoken of the offi- 
cers and crews of our merchant and na- 
tional vessels ; but it is not they alone 
who represent Christianity abroad. Mer- 
chants engaged in extensive commercial 
operations in foreign lands, are often 
themselves brought into personal rela- 
tions with the heathen races ; or if not, 
they have their representatives among 
them, in the form of supercargoes and 
commercial agents — men of ability, and 



14 TO THE MERCHANTS 

for the time invested with the power of 
their principals for good or for evil. The 
talents and capital of such men, if prop- 
erly directed, become the seed and spring 
of great moral changes in the districts 
where their business is transacted. Of 
the dependence of great reformatory 
movements on the aid of business men 
and capital, we shall have occasion 
again to speak. It is enough now to 
say, that the mere presence in a com- 
munity of men of practical ability and 
activity — qualities always the most 
striking and attractive of popular favor — 
provided those qualities coexist with re- 
spect for religion and virtue, will exert 
a happy influence upon the moral condi- 
tion of that community, even if such 
men do not actively cooperate with the 
laborers in the field of reform. How 
much more will that influence be felt 



OF THE UNITED STATES. 15 

when those qualities, so potent in the 
harvest of wealth, are directed to, and 
especially when a generous portion of 
the income realized by them is employ- 
ed in the nobler harvest of men, ripe 
for receiving the gospel into their hearts. 
And better than all, if these men be 
worthy followers of Christ, men not only 
whose moral example is salutary, but 
whose labors and prayers are unwearied 
for the conversion of souls, who can 
measure the extent of their beneficent 
influence, or despair of the speedy chris- 
tianization of the world ? 

If an example be required of the influ- 
ence of commercial men and capital on 
the moral condition of a heathen race, 
study the terrible picture, presented by 
Edmund Burke, of India under its early 
English governors, Clive and Hastings ; 
or, for a brighter picture, conceive what 



16 TO THE MERCHANTS 

the state of society and morals in India 
would have been, had the ruling class- 
es been men doing justly and walking 
humbly before God; had they meted 
out to the subject race, not, as Burke 
says, "substantial violence and formal 
justice," but English law and Protes- 
tant Christianity. 

Again, we ask you, merchants of 
Christian lands, if, with the Christian 
name, the possession of eminent capac- 
ity and great capital does not involve a 
rightful claim upon you, that those en- 
dowments shall be so directed in foreign 
parts as to forward the work of evangeli- 
zation ; or that at least they shall be so 
employed as not to retard the achieve- 
ment of that work ? 

III. But we propose to show, that to 
these grounds of rightful claim upon 
merchants in general, are to be added 



OF THE UNITED STATES. 17 

others pressing with peculiar force upon 
the merchants of the United States. 

1. Our country is largely indebted for 
its free institutions, and for its great 
material prosperity, to a spirit among 
our fathers closely akin to the spirit of 
missions. To labor in this cause is 
therefore but to pay in kind a debt 
which this class, in common with our 
whole nation, owe to God and to hu- 
manity. It is not too much to say, that 
of the several states which achieved our 
revolution, and particularly the New 
England states, all are the offspring of 
missionary effort. What was it, let us 
ask, that brought the pilgrim fathers to 
New England, the first planters to Vir- 
ginia, the Huguenots to South Carolina, 
the settlers under Oglethorpe to Georgia, 
but the unselfish wish, first and chiefly, 
to plant the seed of the church in a new 
2 



18 TO THE MERCHANTS 

land, not alone for the conservation of a 
pure Christianity, but for the redemption 
also of the heathen races inhabiting its 
forests ; and secondly, under the protect- 
ing shadow of the church, to lay deep 
and broad the foundations of states, in 
which political liberty should spring up 
and ripen under the segis of the law? 
Prom these simple men, inspired by this 
grand missionary idea, and chiefly in 
virtue of it, has sprung a nation such as 
the world never saw; whose achieve- 
ments in the sphere of material progress, 
are exceeded only by its still grander 
triumphs in the sphere of intellectual 
and moral cultivation. Can it be that 
God has so signally blessed this gigantic 
missionary enterprise, and that you, mer- 
chants of the United States, who inherit 
much of its fruits, and share largely in 
the glory of its accomplishment, have 



OF THE UNITED STATES. 19 

no duty to perform to help consummate 
throughout the world this great work, 
initiated by your fathers? Can it be 
that God will hold you guiltless, if you 
remain idle now, when Christianity is 
mustering her forces for the great, and, 
we may hope, the final conflict with 
error ? 

2. The social position of merchants in 
the United States is such as to give 
them greater influence, and hence the 
class attracts to its ranks more of the 
best talent in the land, than in commer- 
cial countries generally; their obliga- 
tion, therefore, in respect to missionary 
effort, is in the same proportion greater. 
No class of men among us is in gen- 
eral more honored, or worthy of honor, 
than merchants. In our small towns 
and villages they are commonly among 
the most intelligent and respectable 



20 TO THE MERCHANTS 

members of society ; they take the lead 
in business and politics, are elected to 
offices of trust, and are listened to as 
oracles of opinion. This position of re- 
spect and honor induces a vast number 
of our most promising young men to be- 
gin life as merchants. From the coun- 
try they are recruited to the city, where 
they enter into the wider field of com- 
merce, with every prospect before them 
of attaining wealth, or, if they choose, 
political honors. The poor boy often 
steps from the counter to the merchant's 
desk, and from the merchant's desk to 
the senatorial chair. We say then, that 
for these reasons, the merchants of the 
United States monopolize much of our 
best talent. If this be true, have we 
not a right to look to them for high 
views of duty and noble efforts in the 
cause of God, on the familiar and right- 



OF THE UNITED STATES. 21 

eous principle, that of them to whom 
much has been given, whether of wealth 
or influence, much will be required ? 

3. The fact that Americans and Amer- 
ican institutions are abroad regarded 
with especial favor, enhances the duty 
of our merchants brought in contact with 
heathen nations, to labor for the estab- 
lishment of Christianity among them. 
The practical effect of national predilec- 
tions and antipathies is too well known 
to need much comment. The greatest 
events in the political and moral world 
are often traceable to individual or pop- 
ular caprice. An irrational public sen- 
timent, for instance, in England and 
France, has for ages united in pronounc- 
ing those nations to be natural enemies ; 
the consequence has been, that, since 
the time of William the Conqueror, 
they have repeatedly deluged the con- 



22 TO THE MERCHANTS 

tinent with blood, and even when at 
peace, have been scarcely less hostile to 
each other than when at war. Two of 
the mightiest empires of Europe owe 
their early christianization to a caprice 
of their respective sovereigns, adopted 
and imitated by the ready loyalty of 
their subjects, in consequence of which 
in both cases a nation was literally 
"born in a day."* Especially does this 
principle hold with the more unenlight- 

* Clovis, the founder of the French monarchy, was con- 
verted, a. d. 496, under the influence partly, it is said, of 
policy, and partly of the example of his Christian queen 
Clotilda. The Franks, his subjects, hastened to imitate 
his example, showing themselves, as Gibbon says, "alike 
prepared to follow their heroic leader to the field of battle 
or to the baptismal font." G-ibbon, Decline and Fall, vol. 
3, pp. 574-5. 

The conversion of Vladimir the Great of Russia, who 
began to reign a. d. 988, and of his Russian subjects, after 
the marriage of the former with the sister of the Greek 
emperor, was brought about as rapidly and by similar 
means. See Goodrich's Universal History, vol. 2, p. 
1041. 



OF THE UNITED STATES. 23 

ened portions of the world. , It is hardly 
possible, therefore, to overestimate the 
influence of the United States, in coun- 
tries where they are regarded with unu- 
sual partiality and favor. We have only 
to allude to the opening of Japan — an 
achievement which will excite admira- 
tion more and more, as the difficulties 
which hedged it about are better under- 
stood, difficulties that had baffled the 
diplomacy of Europe for ages — to illus- 
trate clearly this familiar principle, and 
to show forcibly the dominant influence 
wielded by us over both the heads and 
the hearts of distant nations. Our polit- 
ical constitution also, known and admir- 
ed wherever there are hearts sighing 
under oppression, enhances greatly the 
predisposition among the people of for- 
eign nations to regard us and ours with 
especial favor. 



24 TO THE MERCHANTS 

We repeat, therefore, that it is hardly 
possible to place a limit to the influence 
our country may exert, if we have but 
the will to make that influence felt. 
Rather we should say, that influence 
tvill and must be felt, for good or for evil. 
And it is the merchants of the United 
States who are chiefly to determine 
what the character of that influence 
shall be. They are to give a practical 
direction to it, for they almost alone 
come into intimate relations with the 
acting and thinking portion of the for- 
eign population. Is not Christianity, 
then, entitled to call upon this class of 
men for the heartiest devotion to her 
cause, when G-od has so disposed events 
that, whether they will or not, they 
must ever be influential missionaries to 
the heathen — influential for evil, if not 
for good? 



OF THE UNITED STATES. 25 

IV. But the duty of our merchants 
with respect to this cause is not confined 
to their influence in foreign lands. Pos- 
sessed, as we have seen, of a large pro- 
portion of our floating capital, it is clear- 
ly their duty to make liberal and regu- 
lar contributions for the support and ex- 
tension of missions and other kindred 
enterprises. This is a duty which we 
wish especially to enforce, and the more, 
because we fear it has never been fully 
appreciated. There is reason to assert, 
that the mercantile capital of the Unit- 
ed States has not been duly conse- 
crated to the work of the Lord ; that 
merchants have never, as a class, recog- 
nized it as their duty to pay tithes of 
their gain to Him, in whose hands are 
the winds that float their commerce, 
and who, greatly for their enriching, 
causes the sun to rise and the rain to 



26 TO THE MERCHANTS 

descend. With many noble exceptions, 
we fear that the hands of our merchants 
are not so open to give, in proportion 
to their ability, for the world's evangel- 
ization, as are those of some other men, 
whose means are less, but whose rela- 
tions to the church are such as to lead 
them more fully to consider this matter. 
It is too often the case, that our wealthy 
merchants, who give at all for benevo- 
lent purposes, fail properly to support 
the cause of religion by seasonable dona- 
tions; some of them perhaps intending 
at the end of their mercantile career to 
make princely bequests. We would not 
discourage such bequests ; but submit to 
the candid consideration of our business 
men, whether they ought not, in mer- 
cantile language, "to honor the drafts" 
of the Lord upon them " at sight" look- 
ing for his promised blessing upon giv- 



OF THE UNITED STATES. 27 

ing according as we receive, and at the 
same time guarding themselves against 
the prevalent and deceptive sin of cov- 
etousness. 

For the success of the missionary 
cause, it is needful that there be system 
and regularity in giving. No merchant 
needs be told how unsafe it is to launch 
out into extensive operations, without a 
reasonable certainty of having funds to 
meet all emergencies. So it is here. 
The societies for the extension of mis- 
sions are governed, in this respect, by 
precisely the same principles as are our 
mercantile corporations. It is clearly the 
duty, then, of that class of men who can 
best appreciate the necessities of such a 
position, and who are in general best 
able to relieve those necessities, to be 
foremost in so doing. Let our mer- 
chants urge the churches within the 



28 TO THE MERCHANTS 

sphere of their immediate influence, to 
aid in relieving them. This we regard 
as especially important. The American 
churches contain vast numhers of our 
mercantile men. It is in the power of 
these men greatly to influence their be- 
nevolent action ; to organize it ; to give 
it impulse by their personal activity ; to 
secure to it regularity; to increase its 
extent, and to elevate the motives to it. 
It is due to their position in society, that 
this power, so wide-reaching, and in its 
possible results so beneficent, should be 
conscientiously exerted; that our mer- 
chants should take upon themselves the 
office to which they are entitled, of guar- 
dians of the churches in temporal con- 
cerns ; that where action is needed, they 
should urge to action, and where the 
demand is for a liberal contribution to 
give fresh vigor to a drooping cause, 



OF THE UNITED STATES. 29 

that they should make it a matter of 
personal duty to give generously, sea- 
sonably, and regularly themselves, and 
to induce others to do the same. 

As our merchants are frequently the 
most accomplished and energetic, and 
often the only business men in our 
churches, there are many matters of de- 
tail relating to the collection and prompt 
dispatch of contributions, to the distri- 
bution of missionary tracts and periodi- 
cals, etc., which are liable to be either 
poorly executed, or entirely neglected, 
unless they take the lead therein. And 
especially is this true in our smaller 
towns and villages. The stores of our 
country merchants are little centres of 
circulation, to which the citizens flock 
for the sale of their produce and the pur- 
chase of supplies; where they expect 
not only to hear the news, and to re- 



30 TO THE MERCHANTS 

vise their opinions on politics and the 
social questions of the day, but to re- 
ceive intelligence and practical direc- 
tion in reference to all benevolent move- 
ments. These expectations of the com- 
munity in which he lives, it is the duty 
of the merchant promptly and cheer- 
fully to meet. His skill and capital 
are in the nature of a trust, to this end, 
from God himself; and to G-od must 
he answer, if he be unfaithful to that 
trust. 

Again, the business habits of mer- 
chants qualify them, beyond other men, 
for imparting the necessary vigor and 
steadiness to the various organizations 
for missionary purposes throughout our 
land. Men in general have, and ought 
to have, great confidence in the opinions 
of merchants upon all business plans. 
Missionary societies are business socie 



OF THE UNITED STATES. 31 

ties, and as such ought to be, to some 
extent, under the management and con- 
trol of business men. The countless 
details growing out of missionary opera- 
tions cannot be safely managed by un- 
skilful hands. For the collection and 
disbursement of funds, for the regula- 
tion of exchange on foreign countries, 
for the extensive purchases needed in 
the outfit, the support abroad, and the 
return of missionaries, precisely the skill 
of an able merchant is indispensably 
necessary. In this respect, these resem- 
ble the more gigantic operations of war, 
in which the success of a campaign often 
depends as much on the administration 
of the exchequer, or on the humble offi- 
ces of the quarter-master, as on the skil- 
ful strategy of the general. So it is in 
all great moral and social revolutions ; 
they are bottomed on financial opera- 



32 TO THE MERCHANTS 

tions. These constitute the skeleton, 
ahsolutely necessary to give strength 
and stability to the body whereby the 
Spirit works. Our missionary socie- 
ties, under the leadership of eminent 
divines alone, would doubtless effect 
much good, -as they have already ef- 
fected much. Men of great ability are 
many-sided men, and readily adapt 
themselves to any required position. 
But consider how much greater would 
be the efficiency of those societies, were 
the details of their business conducted 
by men of business, entering thereupon 
with the zeal that characterizes them 
when engaged in their own affairs. For 
this reason, we wish to urge upon the 
merchants of the United States the duty 
they owe to God and to humanity, to 
connect themselves earnestly and with- 
out delay, with the various societies for 



OF THE UNITED STATES. 33 

the spread of the gospel. It is certain- 
ly the right of the church and of the 
world to demand this, and in view of 
the many providences of G-od relating 
to them, He seems to be repeating to 
each in unmistakable language, the in- 
junction, "Son, go work to-day in my 
vineyard." 

Thus much in relation to the duties 
and responsibilities of merchants in gen- 
eral throughout the United States. 

To such of this class, however, as are 
professed followers of Christ, additional 
considerations of great weight may be 
presented, growing out of their Chris- 
tian profession and character. These 
men have taken upon themselves a 
most solemn vow of consecration to the 
service of G-od. In language whose 
import cannot be misunderstood, they 

have professed their readiness to deny 
3 



34 TO TEE MERCHANTS 

themselves, even to the surrender of life, 
for the furtherance of their Master's 
cause. If, then, the merely nominal 
Christian, living " without G-od in the 
world," is invested, among the heathen 
who know not God, with the character 
and responsibilities of an ambassador of 
Christ, what shall we say of him who, 
by his voluntary act, has separated him- 
self from the world, with the declared 
purpose of devoting himself to the ser- 
vice of God ? Has he no special duty 
to perform, when the very crisis ap- 
proaches for which his consecration was 
made ? "We ask not, if there is not 
much for him to do ; has he not also 
much to suffer, if need be, for the tri- 
umph of the cause, whose champion he 
has proclaimed himself to be? The 
pagan devotee, obeying the imagined 
behests of some deity, will cheerfully 



OF THE UNITED STATES. 35 

submit to bodily torture, or to death, to 
win the approval of his perverted con- 
science, or of the god which his own 
hands have made. Has Christianity 
alone no martyrs ? Has she, of all the 
religions, no disciples whose zeal will 
lead them to sacrifice wealth and ease 
for a cause to which they have devoted 
themselves thus solemnly ? And is this 
true in an age when there is no earth- 
ly interest so unimportant, but that it 
chronicles the names of many who have 
died to secure or extend it? Martyrs 
and disciples of such devotion Chris- 
tianity indeed has ; as witness the zeal- 
ous labors and self-denials of her mis- 
sionaries, and of the gospel ministry. 
But are there none to help when God 
calls, but His servants consecrated by 
the laying on of hands ? 

Not thus, Christian merchant, is the 



36 TO THE MERCHANTS 

conversion of the world to be accom- 
plished. For the consummation of this 
work, God requires not only the labors 
and contributions of the nominally- 
Christian world, all centering upon this 
object; but with still greater emphasis, 
He demands the labors, the contribu- 
tions, and the life-long sacrifices of all 
who bear His name and seal in the 
church. He demands the exhibition of 
the same spirit which led the apostles, 
and after them the Protestant reformers, 
to rejoice in persecution, and to welcome 
death, if their blood might hasten the 
triumphs of their faith. These claims 
He founds upon the covenant between 
Him and them, whereby they have sworn 
to live for His glory and the extension 
of His kingdom. The heathen world 
adopts and urges these claims. It de- 
mands that the Christian professor shall 



OF THE UNITED STATES. 37 

show the superiority of his faith by de- 
votion at least equal to that of the vota- 
ries of idol-worship ; that the deposita- 
ries of the gospel shall not go, the one 
to his farm arid the other to his mer- 
chandise, leaving the world in the mean- 
time to perish, but .that they shall speed 
the heavenly message on its way, until, 
under its influence, all nations shall be 
converted to God. 

Upon the special means to be adopted 
by the Christian merchant to aid the 
work of missions, we do not propose to 
dwell; but there is one weapon so es- 
sential and so potent, that a few words 
must be devoted to it in this connection. 
We allude to prayer. For the achieve- 
ment of the great conquest, God will be 
inquired of by the collective body of His 
children. He demands to this end that 
their prayers shall ascend unceasingly 



38 TO THE MERCHANTS 

for the outpouring of His Holy Spirit 
upon the heathen world. It is solely 
through the influence of this Spirit that 
God works in converting the soul ; and 
we repeat it, although God requires the 
physical energies, the wealth, and the 
lives of his children, as instrumentalities 
in forwarding His work of regenerating 
the world, yet His plan is to effect this 
w r ork through the agency of His Holy 
Spirit, in answer to the prayers of His 
church. Is it possible then, Christian 
merchant, to overstate the claims which 
the heathen world, passionately calling 
for light, has upon you, thus doubly 
bound to respond, both as a merchant 
and as a Christian? To you, if possi- 
ble more than to other men, is directed 
the command, "Go ye into all the world, 
and preach the gospel to every crea- 
ture." Upon you also, if unfaithful, 



OF THE UNITED STATES. 39 

will rest with overwhelming weight 
the curse of that wicked servant who 
hid his Lord's money: "Take from him 
the pound, and give it unto him that 
hath ten pounds. For unto every one 
that hath shall he given, and from him 
that hath not, even that he hath shall 
be taken away from him." 

"We have thus presented as fully as 
our space would permit, a few of the 
grounds of the claims of the unevangel- 
ized world upon the mercantile classes. 
We have shown that they stand as the 
representatives of Christianity abroad, 
and that accordingly as they there de- 
port themselves, our religion is honored 
or dishonored, and the labors of its mis- 
sionaries facilitated or retarded. We 
have shown that they wield the most 
potent of social weapons, business skill, 



40 TO THE MERCHANTS 

and capital ; that the merchants of our 
own country are invested with still 
greater power abroad, by reason of the 
favor that awaits every thing Ameri- 
can, and at home, by reason of their emi- 
nent social position ; and that their con- 
nection, in numerous cases, with the 
churches throughout our land, while it 
increases their duties and responsibili- 
ties, increases also their power, by faith- 
ful prayer and labors, to hasten on the 
time when the world shall be converted 
to God. 

Merchants of the United States, shall 
these claims be disregarded ? 

Even on the supposition that you 
were to be influenced only by secular 
considerations, there is reason why you 
should put your shoulders firmly to this 
work. It is directly for your worldly in- 
terest that the cause of missions should 



OF THE UNITED STATES. 41 

go forward; that the world should be 
subdued by the spirit of the gospel. As 
Christianity spreads more and more 
widely, civilization keeps pace with it, 
and in the train of civilization march 
commerce and the arts. Every mis- 
sionary station established amidst the 
darkness of paganism, becomes a centre 
not only of light, but of beneficent social 
changes. Where Christianity enters, 
indolence gives place to activity; ener- 
vating habits are thrown off; men seek 
the improvements, and enlist in the 
trades and professions, peculiar to more 
cultivated lands. All these changes, 
and such as these, enlarge the sphere of 
the merchant, whether he be engaged 
in foreign commerce or the narrower 
circle of domestic trade. Prices rise, the 
demand for new products increases, and 
with the number of his customers in- 



42 TO THE MERCHANTS 

creases his wealth and influence. In 
this view of the subject, it is but a state- 
ment of the naked truth to say, that 
the consummation of the great work for 
which the church is praying and all 
good men are laboring, the conversion 
of the world to Christ, is but another 
name for the final triumph of commerce 
and the arts. 

But there is a higher argument than 
this, and to comprehend it in its full 
force, allow the world for a moment to 
recede from you, that you may no longer 
be deafened by the clash of its business 
or blinded by the glare of its petty inter- 
ests. Look steadily at the complexion 
of its past history. First in order, came 
the ruder conflicts of man with nature 
and with the savage instincts of his fel- 
low-man ; then, empires warring against 
empires, the march and countermarch 



OF THE UNITED STATES. 43 

of armies, personal ambition, represented 
by the Caesars and Tamerlanes, fighting 
against the rights of man; next, near 
to our day, the beneficent dawn of sci- 
ence, the application of material forces 
to the amelioration of human ills, the 
printing-press, the steam-engine. In the 
successive acts of this grand drama, are 
there not discernible tokens of a heav- 
en- appointed task for each great histor- 
ical period — of a special mission for 
each in the scheme of Providence, the 
actual working out of which, blindly or 
otherwise, makes up its history ? Then 
look at the age which is just now dawn- 
ing. Observe the general stirring of 
our whole race in relation to the mighty 
questions of political and religious free- 
dom, and ask, " What is the mission of 
this our age? What has God given it 
in charge to do ? Is it not plainly this — 



44 TO THE MERCHANTS 

to enfranchise the world from all forms 
of oppression and error ?" If this be ad- 
mitted, then turn your eyes to the United 
States. Look at the striking providences 
attending its origin and progress; its 
rise, in a century or two, to the first rank 
among Christian powers ; its unexam- 
pled political freedom; the ubiquity of 
its commerce, wonderful a century ago, 
now attributable to magic, were not the 
finger of God evidently in it ; the univer- 
sality of its education; the unwearied 
energy of its people ; and the abounding 
comforts of its domestic life ! — and say, 
in view of all this, if G-od has not unde- 
niably raised up such a nation, in such 
an age, for some grand purpose? and 
say further, if that purpose be not also 
that of the age, the complete enfran- 
chisement of the world from all forms 
of oppression and error ? 



OF THE UNITED STATES. 45 

That this is the purpose of God with 
respect to our country, history is begin- 
ning to show. The principles of our 
revolution early set fire to France; all 
Europe is now ablaze from the same 
spark. So, under our leadership, pagan 
and Mahomedan idolatry are soon to be 
dissipated by the light of a pure Chris- 
tianity. The work is already begun; 
we believe it will be surely and speed- 
ily accomplished. If these things be 
so, is it not imperative upon you, Amer- 
ican merchants, as among the foremost 
men in influence of our nation, to make 
yourselves servants of God's providence 
in this matter; to recognize and wel- 
come the grand mission of your age and 
nation, and by your earnest labors and 
prayers to strive to hasten its accom- 
plishment ? 

The work will undoubtedly go for- 



46 TO THE MERCHANTS 

ward though you should stand aloof, or 
even oppose it, for it is Grod's work; 
and "if it be of God, you cannot over- 
throw it, lest haply ye be found even 
to fight against God." But if you be 
faithful servants, you may aid greatly 
in gaining for your Master's cause a 
speedy triumph, and then as is the work, 
so will be your gracious reward, exceed- 
ingly great and glorious. Lord Bacon 
tells us, in his "Nova Atlantis," of an 
island city, Bensalem, that every year 
sent out twelve men, in disguise, into 
foreign lands, to collect and bring back 
what he quaintly calls "the books, and 
obstructs, and patterns of experiments 
of all other parts." These men they 
styled "merchants of light." So, if you 
be obedient to the divine voice, that 
seems to be urging 'missionary effort as 
your special duty, you will become 



OF THE UNITED STATES. 47 

"merchants of light" also, and in a 
more glorious sense than those apostles 
of the fabled Bensalem; you will be- 
come exporters, to a world lying "in 
darkness and the shadow of death," not 
of the dim light shed from books of 
worldly wisdom, but of the diviner light 
of the G-ospel, which shines on none but 
to bless and save. 



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